Queston regarding Virtual Machines

[WeskerIncarnate]

At the moment, I am running Vista x64 in VMWare so I could test some rogue anti-virus programs, specifically SpySheriff, a particularly nasty one.

Now, just to be sure, is there ANY way it can leak into my host OS, or the OS outside the Virtual Machine.

Any help?

[Borman]

As far as I know, as long as you keep shared files and keep networking off, you should be okay. Those are the major culprits to bad things happening. Though I admit Im not the expert on Virtual Machines

[WeskerIncarnate]

Networking must be off? Are you sure?

I heard only specific malware can spread through one's network. I just want to test rougeware programs.

[Borman]

Better to be safe then sorry, thats all

[WeskerIncarnate]

Ah. Okay, thanks.

[Mr_Zombie]

Think of VM as a separate computer. If you don't copy anything between the VM and your standard OS and if you don't have a LAN connection between them, there's no way something may leak from it.